China is moving to further expand its dominant global stranglehold on critical minerals that are vital to the manufacture of batteries, jet engines, semiconductors, and more, according to a new report. Experts say that the U.S. must leverage its global spending power to obtain a greater share in the minerals market, thereby enhancing national security.

On Wednesday, CNBC reported that Xi Jinping’s communist regime “is mobilizing state-linked companies to take bigger ownership stakes” in overseas mines that produce critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, and more. Analysts say that the move would “give Beijing greater leverage over global supplies of critical minerals and who gets access to them.”

China is executing the plan by establishing a dedicated overseas bureau that will “oversee investments abroad by central state-owned enterprises.” According to analysts like Dan Wang, who serves as China director at Eurasia, this centralization push “could curb disorderly competition among Chinese firms and strengthen their hand against Western competitors and newer entrants, such as Saudi Arabia and India.”

Unlike Western nations, who have avoided investing in countries with rich mineral resources like Tajikistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo due to human rights concerns, Beijing has invested heavily in the two countries. According to a report from the Rhodium Group, the communist regime’s global mineral acquisitions reached $8.8 billion in the first three quarters this year — “already the highest annual total since at least 2018.”

Minerals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and others have become critical components of producing the technology that the world depends on, principally to manufacture rechargeable batteries that all phones, tablets, laptops, and other consumer electronic devices depend on. In addition, rare earth elements such as neodymium, yttrium, and samarium are critical to producing military equipment such as fighter jet motors, precision-guided munitions, and radar systems.

What has become increasing distressing to national security experts is that China, the U.S.’s number one adversary, has all but cornered the market on these critical minerals and rare earth elements. Beijing dominates the global mineral processing market (ranging from 40 to over 90% depending on the mineral) as well as the rare earth mining market at almost 70%. But in order to obtain the rare earth elements, the earth must be processed in refineries, of which Beijing produces 92% of due to taking on the high environmental costs that Western countries are unwilling to take on. As noted by CNBC, “The U.S. has abundant supplies of rare earths, but it relies on China to refine them.”

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal last month, the Trump administration has responded to the issue by attempting to create a China-free supply chain of minerals by directing hundreds of millions of dollars into domestic mineral projects as well as negotiating numerous bilateral agreements with countries in South America and Asia to import minerals. Data shows that the effort is slowly beginning to work, and U.S. officials say they are on track to remove China from the supply chain of some minerals within the next six to 12 months, while other minerals would take until 2030 to be China-free.

Still, experts like Gordon Chang, an author and distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, say that while the Trump administration has made some progress in improving the U.S.’s market share of critical minerals, there is still much room for improvement.

“We can gear up on making ourselves resilient — something we’re doing already thanks to President Trump — but in the meantime we can use our superior bargaining position to force China to relax its de facto embargo,” he told The Washington Stand. “Trump, playing his strong hand weakly, has not wielded American power at his disposal.”

“At the moment, Xi Jinping has put his future in our hands by turning his back on his internal economy,” Chang added. “This means his only hope to rescue his economy, and his political system, is to export more. There is no replacement for the American market: We Americans account for about a third of global consumer spending. Trump, therefore, can use access to our market as a club. He botched the tariff campaign and has not used the threat of other tools that can keep Chinese products out.”